Business Activity Monitoring: Real-Time Group Goals and Feedback Using an Overhead Scoreboard in a Distribution Center

Goomas, David T.; Smith, Stuart M.; Ludwig, Timothy D.

Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, v31 n3 p196-209 2011

Companies operating large industrial settings often find delivering timely and accurate feedback to employees to be one of the toughest challenges they face in implementing performance management programs. In this report, an overhead scoreboard at a retailer's distribution center informed teams of order selectors as to how many tasks were completed, how many tasks were in queue, and how their team performance measured up against engineered labor standards. Results indicated that group-based immediate feedback can have a substantial impact on performance. Productivity for order selectors (n = 36) assigned to four pick zones increased by an average of 10.25% after intervention. The role of the Organizational Behavior Management experimenter and practitioner in linking business activity monitoring and engineered labor standards in order to accelerate key operational processes was examined. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)